The present invention is directed to caps with adjustable sunglasses, in particular, to caps having adjustable sunglasses that can be moved freely forward and backward relative to the cap visor in order to fit them suitably to the wearer's eyes or nose position while the sunglasses are attached to the cap visor.
In general, caps with various types of visors are worn to prevent direct exposure of the face to strong sun at beaches, or during hiking, fishing or athletic activities. Although such caps block some of sun's direct rays, they often cannot block glare caused by refraction or reflection of light. Therefore, people must suffer the inconvenience of having to carry sunglasses separate from visored caps for outdoor activities.
Products have been developed to alleviate such inconvenience and to provide caps with attached sunglasses. Diverse inventions have been made for this purpose including U.S. Pat. No. 1,473,013, E.U. Patent No. 0412737, E.U. Patent No. 0321617, French Patent FR-F-66, German Federal Patent DE2030546, Korean Utility Patent Notice No. 95-219 and Korean Utility Patent Public Notice No. 93-22785.
A typical approach is illustrated by the invention of Korean Utility Patent Public Notice No. 93-22785 which discloses a cap design where sunglasses are fixed to the bottom surface of a cap visor and rotatable to fold so that the sunglasses can be opened for normal use or stowed by being folded against the bottom surface of the visor.
These caps come with sunglasses having fixed positions so that the wearer cannot adjust the distance of the glasses from the wearer's eye position. Therefore, in the case of a wearer who wears eye glasses, the use of sunglasses on such a cap presents an inconvenience and blocks normal vision.
The invention of Korean Utility Patent Registration No. 20-0199241, Patent Application No. 20-2000-0013573, includes a guide rail which is attached to the middle section of a visor's bottom surface, towards the front and forms a guide path lengthwise internally while the opening of the guide path is equipped with a pair of holding ledges. A movable adjustment piece moves along the guide path of the guide rail to adjust for distance from the eyes. The sunglasses are attached to the lower end of the movable carrier and are rotatable for being folded against the cap visor.
This cap with sunglasses that are distance adjustable has the advantage of adjustment of the sunglasses' position to fit the wearer's needs by moving the sunglasses forward or rearwards with respect to the cap visor along a guide rail. However, this prior art detachable sunglass cap has a structure wherein the guide rail must be attached and detached to and from the bottom surface of the cap visor each time sunglasses need to be attached to the visor, thus requiring the repetitive and inconvenient task of adjusting the guide rail position to ensure that it is positioned in the direct center of the cap visor.
Furthermore, this prior art cap with detachable glasses has a structure where an end piece must be attached to an end of the guide rail so that the end piece and the movable adjustment piece have the possibility of detaching from the guide rail and getting lost. Also, in this design, an indented area is formed at a side of the holding ledge, whereby the sunglasses may be moved in accordance with each stage of indentation. However no holding piece is provided to fix the sunglasses' position so that even a slight impact can dislocate the sunglasses, changing their position either forward or backward along the guide rail.